anima flux
by messenger bird
Summary: without zexion, the ocean became bottomless. zexion.demyx.


**disclaimer: NOT MINE. unfortunately.**

warning: angst. swearing. slash. more angst.

ah, the joys of tragedy and zemyx. you know you love it. don't deny the truth.

leave a nice review on your way out, if you will.

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_ Demyx,_

_ I have to go; I must hopefully succeed in deceiving Riku into joining the Organization. I have an_

_ intuitive feeling, though, that I will not come back…Assuming I do not return, I must tell you this now,_

_ through this letter. I'd much rather tell you in person…but, I'm sorry, I suppose it has to be this way._

_ Demyx. I think Xemnas is either wrong or lying to us, because I am one hundred percent sure I have_

_ no heart, but I am still feeling this. How? I do not know. Maybe Vexen would, but unfortunately, he_

_ has already gone. Lexaeus is gone as well, and I am surely next, whether it be Riku or Number VIII_

_ that destroys me. So I bid you farewell, Demyx._

_I need no heart, as long as I have you._

_ I'll be waiting._

_ I love you._

_ - Zexion_

_--- _

Ocean eyes scanned over the letter again and again, losing count of the number of times he read the last four sentences.

'_I need no heart, as long as I have you.'_

"Oh, Zexion," he whispered, voice cracking. "Oh, Zexy. You're right. Gods, Zex…I can't believe you're gone."

His whispers melted into sobs, ripping and tearing from the Nocturne, doubled over on the floor with the letter lovingly clutched in one gloved hand. His sea eyes were squeezed shut. "Oh, Zexion…"

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Once the most lighthearted of the Organization, Demyx quickly became as uncaring and stoic as the rest of them, perhaps even more so.

For the most part he was away on missions, some of them recon and some not. He didn't interact with or encounter the other Organization members except for the odd occasion in the hallways or at meetings.

Whenever he did attend the meetings, the emptiness in Zexion's chair stuck out horribly, an unfamiliar impulse to scream or sob rising in Demyx's throat every time his oceanic eyes strayed to it. It was too much, this loss.

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His dark boots cast soft footfalls against the puddled, wet streets of the World That Never Was. Rain drenched him thoroughly, but the water was his element, his forte. He embraced the cold, welcomed the numbness that soon engulfed him. His dirty-blonde mulhawk was flattened and completely saturated with the rain, hanging limply in his eyes.

Frankly, he didn't care. He didn't care at all anymore.

The rain eventually calmed itself to a dull drizzle, but Demyx kept wandering. His ocean eyes were downcast and empty, distant in the memories whirring through his mind.

_Zexion's hidden sketch of Demyx found when the Nocturne stumbled upon his empty room, tucked just inside the cover of a thick book; Zexion's eyes closing serenely as Demyx played a song he'd composed just for the Schemer; Zexion's small hand linked with his as they stood beside the ebbing tide at the constantly-dusk beach in Twilight Town; both of Zexion's small hands clenching into fists around a handful of Demyx's light blue bedsheets as the Nocturne continued his ministrations, reflecting in the back of his hazy mind that Zexion's breathy moans and soft gasps were melding into a sweet kind of music; Zexion's indigo eyes, soft and warm without their defenses, eyes he loved to gaze into as they stood in the city beneath the radiance of the heart in the sky –_

"Demyx." The redhead stepped out of the shadows of an alley, a smirk plastered on his face.

_–__ the same heart he had been staring up at until Zexion's murderer's accomplice interrupted him, his ribcage feeling even more hollow without the slate-haired Nobody there with him._

"Number VIII." Demyx's voice was brittle towards his once-best friend.

"Aw, c'mon, Dem. What crawled up your ass? Or, should I say, what _didn't_?"

"What the fuck do you want, Axel?" The Nocturne snapped his cold ocean gaze on Number VIII.

"Rawr. Just wanted to chill for a few, Dem. You know, for the sake of old times." Axel seemed unfazed by Demyx's harshness, the mocking smirk still on his face. The frigidity in Demyx's eyes kicked up a notch.

"Very funny, asshat. Now that you've succeeded in irritating the shit out of me, would you kindly fuck off?" Demyx's tone was dangerous, low. "Don't forget, _dearest Axel_, that water beats fire any day of the fucking week."

The Nocturne intentionally pushed past the Flurry of Dancing Flames, giving a small smirk of his own when Axel staggered back in shock.

Then he found himself doubled over, gasping in an effort to catch the breath knocked from him, elusive air he needn't breathe. Steam hissed in the damp atmosphere as Axel stalked over, chakrams clenched in his gloved fists. Flames licked around the circular weapons.

"Don't turn your back on me, bitch," the redhead snarled, raising one ignited chakram as if to throw it at the fallen Nocturne.

Demyx hastily jumped to his feet, summoning his sitar and strumming a few hurried chords as Axel snapped the flaming chakram in his direction; the spinning fire weapon was parried by a wall of water abruptly materializing, gushing up from the city street in anti-gravity vigor.

The extinguished chakram swung back to Axel in a boomerang-like fashion, and he glared at Demyx, toxic green eyes spitting fire.

They were now surrounded in steam from their clashed elements, the heated water vapor rising in waves. The two Nobodies glared at each other through the opaque veil of vapor.

"You killed him." The snarl ripped from Demyx, a raw sound.

Axel's cocky laugh rang out. "The Replica did. He wanted to be whole. Isn't that ironic?

Demyx turned and walked away, his sitar dissipating in a rush of aqua.

"Go find Roxas, Axel. He needs you." The venom in Demyx was gone as he dragged himself back to headquarters, the darkness swallowing him eagerly.

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Without Zexion, the ocean became bottomless. It was melancholia, weary tides lapping sorrowfully at the shores of afterlife, begging to have his heart back.

Without Zexion, the soft melodies emanated from the sitar strings were pointless and empty.

Without Zexion, Demyx was truly nothing, a broken shell of his previous life as Myde, irreversibly connected to Zexion and Ienzo.

Zexion was his anchor, the shore he clung to when the tides ebbed and began to drag him back to his element. Zexion gave him something to hold on to when the emptiness threatened to consume him.

Zexion was everything he wasn't, everything he wanted.

Zexion was his heart, and now he was gone.

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"Fetch Roxas. Do not return without him." The orders were simple, but Demyx knew he was being sent to his death. Xemnas' tangerine eyes were cruel as he dismissed Demyx, an almost inscrutable smirk upon his face.

"He won't return," he noted calmly to his second-in-command, Saïx, as Demyx exited the room. The Diviner merely nodded as Xemnas continued.

"One less idiot in our ranks. One step closer to our goal."

The Nocturne didn't say goodbye, the loss in his chest swelling as he stepped into a portal to the Underworld.

It didn't take long.

"Silence, traitor." This idiot was obviously not fully Roxas, Demyx knew. He also knew that Roxas had merged with said idiot, this 'Sora' kid; he could see the steel-blue of Roxas in Sora's eyes as the brunette prepared for battle, Keyblade cradled in his hands.

For a few nonexistent heartbeats, it felt just like battle practice with Roxas back at headquarters. And in a way, it was.

Demyx took it easy on the kid because of that fact, the fact that this so-called 'hero' was half of Roxas, even if his friend was suppressed.

He refused to show any sign of physical pain as the Keyblade cut through him again and again, leaving behind gashes and wounds burning and throbbing with pain, white-hot and pure. His face remained a stubborn, stoic mask; a real tribute to the Organization's cold demeanor, the Nobodies' heartless stereotype.

Another slice from the Keyblade and Demyx began to notice a dark-cloaked figure in his peripheral vision. Two more blows and indigo eyes were gazing at him calmly, clearly.

He felt Roxas' cool breath on his neck murmuring a quick 'sorry' as Sora stepped close; the Keyblade delivered its final blow, initiating the beginning of his fading.

His sitar fell to the ground as the brunette stepped away, melting again in aquatic sounds as the darkness trailed along the Nocturne's being and tugged at a loose edge, the rest of him slowly following.

Suddenly, Zexion's eyes were all he could see. He fell to his knees, an agonized sound crawling up his throat.

He screamed, the sound ripping from him, his gloved hands jerking up to scrape at his temples, the hollow in his chest filling as he fell to his knees and his physical body faded, as Zexion's indigo eyes softened in sympathy and another inscrutable sentiment.

His own ocean eyes snapped open briefly and his head jerked up, just in time to imprint the triumphant expression on Sora's face tinged with Roxas' horror on his mind like blurred pictures on film, feeling briefly the terror of realization that consumed his ex-Organization friend. It hurt almost as much as the physical pain that consumed him.

Demyx tried to give a sad smile to rid his former comrade of the feeling, tried to reassure him that they'd meet again in the next life, but the smile was more a pained grimace and his larynx was gone to the darkness.

Zexion was becoming more solid with each passing second.

Zexion's hand reached to take his own as Demyx's last ties to the other world were slowly cut, the hand squeezing gently until nothing was left of the Nocturne in that world and he and Zexion were whole in their new realm.

The hand was tugging him forward now, and Zexion was pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips…

"Zexion..."

"Shh, Demyx. It's okay now."

"Zexy…I love you, Zexion." Demyx's ebbtide voice was cracking, breaking in relief and long-suppressed love as saline trailed down his cheekbones.

A smile, an answering "I love you too, Dem," and together they walked to the next life, restored hearts beating in time with the ticking clock, hands gently clasped.

The tides clung to the shoreline, ebbing and flowing in sync to their heartbeats.

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"I need no heart, as long as I have you."

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End file.
